a. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains generally to communication networks and specifically to networks having multiple radios.
b. Description of the Background
Wireless communications networks are being widely deployed. In order to ensure subscriber coverage, a wireless network may have several radio transceivers positioned so that the coverage areas of the radios overlap. As radio coverage areas overlap, some interference and undesirable cross-communication between radios may occur. Such interference may decrease available bandwidth, which diminishes the number and quality of potential subscriber connections.
Many wireless protocols have a feature whereby a device can sense if another device is using the specific frequency or band, and the first device will refrain from transmitting. In some protocols, the first device may retry the transmission at a later time, which may be a randomly generated time. Such a feature aims to minimize one device ‘talking over’ another device and preventing both device's transmissions from getting through. This collision detection feature is widely used in many different protocols, including standard wired Ethernet and wireless Ethernet-based protocols such as IEEE 802.11 wireless protocols.
A distinct problem with such protocols is that the bandwidth is inherently underutilized and throughput for each device can be much less than optimal, especially when many devices are communicating on the network. When many devices attempt to communicate on the band simultaneously, the collision detection and avoidance procedures begin to occupy much of the communication bandwidth.
It would therefore be advantageous to provide a system and method for providing improved use of the available bandwidth for communication networks having several radios.